Warning: The following article contains details not appropriate for all readers.
An elderly Victoria man has opted to flee instead of turning himself in to serve prison time after being sentenced on child pornography charges.
On November 6th, Greater Victoria Crime Stoppers announced an arrest warrant had been issued for 82-year-old William Lee Tate, who was thought to have fled from his conviction on charges related to child pornography.
He was meant to turn himself in at the Vancouver Island Regional Correctional Centre on October 31st, but has fled, and is thought by police to be somewhere in BC’s interior.
Tate was sentenced to nearly two years in prison for his crimes by the Supreme Court of British Columbia, and is meant to serve three years probation afterwards.
Police first began their investigation into Tate in 2019 when the United States-based Child Protection Service alerted investigators that his IP address was sharing a large volume of child pornography.
In their investigation, it was determined that Tate’s IP address was in the top 10 uploaders and sharers of child pornography in the Greater Victoria area.
Police searched Tate’s home three years later, in February 2022, and found 60,491 “unique images” that were confirmed to meet the Criminal Code’s definition of child pornography by two officers who reviewed the gathered material.
Additionally, Tate’s hard drives contained 2,272 unique videos constituting child pornography with a total run time of 5,742 hours and 54 minutes.
During the investigation, Tate admitted to police that he possessed this material and distributed it through a “peer-to-peer network.”
Police determined that the pornographic material seized depicts violent sexual abuse of prepubescent girls, some of whom are only infants.
“The images and videos show human nature at its cruellest and most malevolent directed against the most vulnerable,” wrote Justice Gareth Morley, who was responsible for Tate’s sentencing.
Justice Morley added that Tate’s offence is not a victimless crime.
“We may not know who Mr. Tate’s victims were, but there were many, possibly thousands, of them,” he wrote.
“Mr. Tate may not have touched or filmed the victims, but he participated in their exploitation and enslavement. Their torture was for his benefit and of the benefit of others like him, including those he was actively ‘sharing’ with.”
Tate’s background revealed that the 82-year-old was born in the US and moved to Canada to avoid being deployed in the Vietnam War.
He lived on BC’s coast since he moved to Canada, working as a researcher, a teacher and as a longshoreman at Vancouver Port.
Additionally, Tate was one of the founders of the Georgia Straight, a once-popular Vancouver-based publication.
Tate lives alone in subsidized housing and has two daughters, though he only has occasional contact with one of them.
Though Tate admitted to committing these offences, the forensic psychologist assigned to assess him noted he “minimizes the seriousness of his conduct.”
“He stated that he did not know that it was illegal, which I find to be untrue,” wrote Justice Morley.
“He claimed he had no sexual or erotic interest in images and videos of prepubescent girls, which is impossible to reconcile with his accumulation of a massive collection, and I also find that to be untrue.”
Ultimately, Morley determined that Tate knew he had broken the law and has yet to show any remorse.
Tate has been sentenced to serve the maximum provincial sentence for his actions, which is two-years, less one day. This is because any sentence over two years is issued at a federal level, and his sentence was handed down by a provincial court.
Following his time in prison, Tate will serve three-years probation with many conditions.
Among his conditions, he is not to go to any public park, public swimming area, daycare centre, school ground, playground, community centre or theatre where people under the age of 16-years-old are present.
Tate is still on the run after fleeing his conviction.
According to Greater Victoria Crime Stoppers, William Tate is believed to be travelling in a grey 1997 Chevy Astro van bearing BC licence plate EW7008.
Tate is approximately 6’ tall, weighs around 225 pounds, with grey/balding hair and blue eyes.
Anyone with information is asked to contact police or Greater Victoria Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
